Kaposi's Sarcoma is a condition characterized by malignant skin tumors. Kaposi's Sarcoma has been recognized since the middle of the nineteenth century as a specific disease. In the past Kaposi's Sarcoma has developed slowly and was seen almost exclusively in elderly Italian and Jewish men. However, since 1981 Kaposi's Sarcoma has been a prominent feature of AIDS. In patients with AIDS, Kaposi's Sarcoma is highly aggressive and tumors soon become wide-spread.
The tumors, consisting of blue-red nodules, usually start on the patient's feet or ankles, spread further up the legs and then appear on the patient's hands and arms. In patients with AIDS these tumors commonly affect the gastrointestinal and respiratory tracts, where these tumors may cause severe internal bleeding. In fact as an immediate cause of death in patients suffering from AIDS in the U.S.A., Kaposi's Sarcoma is second only to pnemonia induced by Pneumocista Karinii.
Until recently Kaposi's Sarcoma was evaluated as a disease associated only with patients suffering from a compromised immunosystem. But in 1995 Dr. Patrick Moore of Columbia University recognized some specific herpes virus sequences in tissues obtained from patient's suffering from Kaposi's Sarcoma. Then Dr. Don Ganem of the University of California isolated from the patient's tumorous tissues, a specific herpes virus which is the etiological agent of the Kaposi's Sarcoma. The disease's etiological factor is activated by the immunodefective status of the AIDS patient.